Back to WCBS, Chris Wragge Begins Co-Anchoring 6 p.m. Newscast

When prominent American novelist Thomas Wolfe wrote “You Can’t Go Home Again,” he obviously wasn’t referring to Chris Wragge. The likable news anchor returned to WCBS/Channel 2 last night, where he joined veteran Dana Tyler for the 6 p.m. broadcast.

Don Dahler‘s future with WCBS remains unclear.

The New Jersey native left WCBS at the end of 2010 to concentrate on his new gig—co-host of The Early Show.

And call it an “insurance policy” of sorts for Wragge, with the future of The Early Show uncertain. In fact, last week, the first winds of change may have started to blow as weathercaster Marysol Castro was removed from the broadcast.

So at the least, Wragge, the Emmy Award-winning anchor, has a 30-minute nightly newscast to fall back on.

But anyone who was expecting a welcome reminiscent of Michael Jordan’s return to the Bulls after a two-year hiatus to get baseball out of his system, was sadly mistaken.

This was a low-key return, or even a planned, seemless transition for Wragge.

Fittingly, Wragge, or the news team, didn’t make his return bigger than the news they were delivering. Actually, there was no reference until the sports segment with Otis Livingston at 22 minutes past. (Meteorologist Elise Finch was in for weather anchor Lonnie Quinn.)

Wragge threw it to Livingston by joking, “My first time back, ‘You’re going to lead with the [New York] Giants?’”

Tyler laughed, “Come on, it’s not all about you.”

The newscast ended with Tyler quickly adding “welcome back” to her new on-air partner.

Wragge replied, “Thank you, It’s good to be back.”

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